Nottingham Forest have sacked manager Sean O'Driscoll just hours after the club's 4-2 Boxing Day win against Leeds United.

The club's co-owner Fawaz Al-Hasawi announced the decision via his Twitter account with Forest eighth in the Championship table, a point outside the play-off places.

Al-Hasawi added in a club statement: “And with the January transfer window approaching, we feel it’s the right time to make a change.

“We are looking to bring in an ambitious manager with Premier League experience.”

O'Driscoll had been in charge just five months after moving to the City Ground from Crawley Town in the summer.

Co-owner Abduklaziz Al-Hasawi added: “The timing of our decision may look a little odd after the win over Leeds but sometimes you need to make changes with the long term future in mind.

"Sometimes those changes need to be made from a position of strength rather than weakness and that is what we are trying to do.”

The next manager will be the fourth in little more than 18 months - Billy Davies's sacking in June 2011 was followed by short stints in charge from Steve McClaren, Steve Cotterill and O'Driscoll.

After the win against Leeds, O'Driscoll said: "I think we need consistency, sometimes we have consistent results from inconsistent performances and then we have inconsistent results from consistent performances."